Welcome to our travel blog. We are Tabitha and Nic. In 2011 we 'retired' in our early 40s and set off to travel the world. We spent our first year in South America and have been lucky enough to make two trips to Antarctica.

Our blog is a record of our travels, thoughts and experiences. It is not a guide book, but we do include some tips and information, so we hope that you may find it useful if you are planning to visit somewhere we have been. Or you may just find it interesting as a bit of armchair travel.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Up the Delta and onwards to San Antonio

From Carmelo we took the Deltacat along the Parana river to Tigre. Just about everything in South America is huge, and the delta is no exception. The muddy brown river is very wide, and in the full glare of the sun we both started to feel very sleepy on the crossing.
We just about managed to open our eyes long enough to appreciate the wide expanse of water with its reed beds, and to note the little secluded houses built on stilts at the edge of the river.

As we pulled into Tigre, I was enthusiastic to see roller coasters and other rides but Nic, who doesn't like such things at all, assured me that we didn't have time to stop and sample them. In fairness he was telling the truth, but I think he would have tried that anyway even had we had hours to spare. So it was straight off the boat, through customs back into Argentina, and onto the bus to Buenos Aires.
The bus was slow to arrive in the city so we jumped in a cab to Retiro bus terminal, quickly bought our tickets and rushed to the right bay for our scheduled departure, just about making it on time.

And then waited an hour for the bus because it was late. When it did arrive, we were caught up in protests blockading the roads, so we got to San Antonio de Areco in the dark and a few hours later than expected.
We found our hostel, having to interrupt the owner's family dinner in the process, but they were very welcoming and suggested a some places where we might go for a meal. We considered a few but were won over by a place called Tokio Viejo on the corner of the main square that was already busy and gearing up for some live music. We got the last table in the place and settled down to good food and a couple of guys playing tangos.

One of the great things about places like this is that all the locals get up and dance. The dance floor was less crowded than the milonga that we had been to, but still busy at times and we were impressed as the couples managed to dance around each other.

With a bit more space available, there was a bit more of the leg flicking going on too; it amuses me to see Nic flinch almost every time they do it, as he worries that a slight miscalculation of the woman's part could leave her partner in some pain. I get the feeling he would never be comfortable participating in that particular move himself.

Towards the end of the evening, we got chatting to a few of the people on the table next to us. People here always seem to be very interested in our travels and we were quizzed at length. In a mix of our Spanish and Areceli and Martin's English, we managed to paint a good enough picture that Areceli asked if she could come with us.

She was also the first Argentine person to bring up the subject of the Falklands with us. She laughed as she simply said that Las Malvinas are Argentine, and was clearly expecting me to say no. There was no question that this was not an issue for her and she was simply having a laugh. We agreed to disagree!

As the evening and the dancing continued, they started playing a few other dances as well as the tango, and that is when one of the other couples decided we should join in. Before we had time to try to get out of it, he had dragged me up onto the floor, and she had caught Nic and we were all 'dancing'.

Thankfully everyone there realised we wouldn't have the faintest idea what we were doing, and they all seemed to be quite happy with our efforts to follow our leads.
We were the last group to leave at around 2am, and three different people offered us a lift back to our hostel. Not that we needed a lift as it as it was only a short walk. Overall it was a great evening, made all the better for getting some proper interaction with a few of the local people.

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